SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Leaked draft details Trump's likely attack on technology giants:
The Trump Administration is putting the final touches on a sweeping executive order designed to punish online platforms for perceived anti-conservative bias. Legal scholar Kate Klonick obtained a draft of the document and posted it online late Wednesday night.
[...] The document claims that online platforms have been "flagging content as inappropriate even though it does not violate any stated terms of service, making unannounced and unexplained changes to policies that have the effect of disfavoring certain viewpoints, and deleting content and entire accounts with no warning, no rationale, and no recourse."
The order then lays out several specific policy initiatives that will purportedly promote "free and open debate on the Internet."
First up is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
[...] Trump's draft executive order would ask the Federal Communications Commission to clarify Section 230—specifically a provision shielding companies from liability when they remove objectionable content.
[...] Next, the executive order directs federal agencies to review their ad spending to ensure that no ad dollars go to online platforms that "violate free speech principles."
Another provision asks the Federal Trade Commission to examine whether online platforms are restricting speech "in ways that do not align with those entities' public representations about those practices"—in other words, whether the companies' actual content moderation practices are consistent with their terms of service. The executive order suggests that an inconsistency between policy and practice could constitute an "unfair and deceptive practice" under consumer protection laws.
Trump would also ask the FTC to consider whether large online platforms like Facebook and Twitter have become so big that they've effectively become "the modern public square"—and hence governed by the First Amendment.
[...] Finally, the order directs US Attorney General William Barr to organize a working group of state attorneys general to consider whether online platforms' policies violated state consumer protection laws.
[Ed Note - The following links have been added]
Follow Up Article: Trump is desperate to punish Big Tech but has no good way to do it
The Executive Order: Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday May 29 2020, @07:17PM (8 children)
If internet platforms must be held liable for all speech present on them, then how much more should that be true of "on the radio spectrum" broadcast media.
Just imagine Fox News being held liable for everything said by their own hosts or guests. Can you even begin to calculate the damages?
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by tizan on Friday May 29 2020, @08:06PM (2 children)
If it is wrong in one place ...it is wrong in another place....Radio spectrum media are in the business of giving facts and news ...and opinions labelled clearly as opinion...just like the newspapers. They should be liable...
This is not the good samaritan law... where people are not liable in trying to help.
These are businesses making money and they found the more unchecked "info" you spread the more money you can make and they are not liable because they have strong/succesful lobbyist. It is not freedom of speech here ...it is making money by spreading rumors.
Then "The Onion" should qualify as a proper news outlet and not a satirical source.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday May 29 2020, @08:52PM (1 child)
Radio spectrum and Intarwebs are different.
Radio spectrum is a limited finite resource. It must be managed in the public interest. Lots of potential users, and they must all get allocated slices of that spectrum. Since there is a finite amount of spectrum, that public interest can include requirements on broadcast media to ensure some illusion of fairness.
Internet has no limit. At least in the radio spectrum sense. Anybody can set up a server. More infrastructure can be built. Higher capacity cable can be laid if there is market demand for it, etc. But no amount of "building" can create new radio spectrum.
I agree radio spectrum news should be liable, perhaps more liable than print media. However print media can be 'limited' in a certain area, like a city with only one news paper. So I can see where print media may end up getting more regulation than broadcast media. But the same principle works for a city with only one broadcast media.
Spreading lies and misinformation, especially dangerous misinformation are wrong. Period. In any media.
But perhaps more evil on radio spectrum media and print media (limited number of providers) vs the internet (unlimited number of providers).
At least on the internet, you can find the truth -- if you have a way to actually identify it as truth.
Now, just an aside thought. It seems that Freedom of Speech was really about political speech. That is, ideas. Not about spreading factually wrong information. We can disagree about whether idea A or B are better, but not about whether the sun rises in the East vs West.
Maybe there should be real liability for spreading that false information -- but not liability upon the platform, but upon the one spreading it. If you want to remove the internet CDA 230 shield, and make the platform liable, then you certainly should also make all radio spectrum and print media have liability for every last tiddle bit of falsehood that they spread. Or said differently, if Soylent News should be legally liable for every troll here, then Fox News / CNN, etc should be at least as legally liable for every bit of falsehood that they spread.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday May 29 2020, @08:54PM
Anybody can go start their own Soylent News online. Not anybody can go start their own CNN / Fox News without getting a broadcast license.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by slinches on Saturday May 30 2020, @04:35PM (4 children)
Internet platforms should be held accountable for the content if they are exercising control of the content. In essence, it becomes the platform's speech when they pick and choose content to promote or remove, regardless of the original source. If the platform neutrally passes on user content, then they are acting as a true public forum and only the user should be responsible for that content.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @05:55PM
Which is what the surviving bits of the CDA amounted up to.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday June 01 2020, @03:47PM (2 children)
Internet platforms should be accountable for the content they write.
Internet platforms should NOT be accountable for the content that others write. Those others should be accountable for that.
I would want the two above rules to hold regardless of which way a web platform leans. Nobody should be liable for other people's words or message.
Now even if Trump and Twitter were not the subject matter here, I would still hold those two rules I just stated. As much as I hate Microsoft, I would propose that Microsoft should not be liable for words Hillary Clinton might post on a Microsoft site -- while at the same time Microsoft should be allowed to control the content on their site and express their own views.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by slinches on Monday June 01 2020, @10:31PM (1 child)
I agree with this. That is exactly what I want to happen.
Where we disagree is in the ownership of the content when it is being manipulated by the platform. I contend that when the platform manipulates user supplied content to promote their own causes or hide/detract from competing causes they are in essence claiming responsibility for that speech in addition to the original source. Essentially, they control what is shown and form their own speech out of other's words. Therefore, common carrier protections should only be applied to platforms that do not discriminate between posts based on content. The platform owners still have the freedom to comment however they like, but only in the same way that any other user of the platform would have access to without triggering the loss of protection from the legal consequences. That way, there's a clear dividing line between the user's speech and the platform's speech.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday June 02 2020, @01:29PM
Merely quoting speech should not create liability.
Using someone's quoted text to promote your own idea, probably should, as you say in addition to the original speaker who wrote it.
The devil is in the details.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.